Interferometry Modeling and Height Reconstruction for High-Rise Buildings in Complex Scenes Based on One Single Interferogram

Benefiting from the advantages of height sensitivity, the short time span, and the low data cost, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology has the potential for 3-D reconstruction. However, the layover problem has always been the limitation for the InSAR-based height reconstruction of buildings in complex scenes because of the mixing of scatterings from building facade, roof, and other interferers. In this article, the above layover problem was addressed, and the height reconstruction of buildings in complex scenes was first achieved based on one single interferogram. Specifically, the layover mechanism in complex scenes in the InSAR system was fundamentally explored and was summarized as a general interferometry model. Based on the established model, a height reconstruction method for high-rise buildings was proposed. The main idea is to recognize the facade scattering-dominated area and then reconstruct the complete facade interferometric phase based on the interferometry model and derived facade phase gradient characteristic. Finally, the building height can be obtained based on the phase-height conversation. TerraSAR-X InSAR data in six different complex scenes were used for experiments. For results based on the proposed method, the mean absolute error and root-mean-square error are less than 1.2 m, and compared with the building height reconstruction based on the original layover phase, the accuracy is improved by several meters to tens of meters, indicating that the height reconstruction of buildings in complex scenes can be achieved with high accuracy based on the proposed method.